


strong stomach

by avoidfilledwithcelluloid



Series: death note short fic collections [4]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Also this isn't a ship so it didn't really fit in my other story collections, Experimentation Horror, Gen, Needles, POV Second Person, Semi-L Wins type AU, so y'all get it as a oner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 01:18:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19415488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidfilledwithcelluloid/pseuds/avoidfilledwithcelluloid
Summary: In Russia, he tells you, there are few good people but many people in good costumes. He pauses, his dry lips the only color on his face that isn’t plunked through with ink, and taps your bare arm. Another tap, and you wonder what he’s looking for. Probably a good vein. To be honest, it don’t matter if he finds a good one or a poor one. The first vein always rolls on your right arm and he’ll have to try your left. "Light has such reluctant veins," he says to you each week. "Do they have something to hide too?""I want to go home," you tell him."Another week," L talks down toward your forearm with its dishonest veins. "Surely, you owe me another week."(After getting caught as Kira, Light ends up agreeing to let L run a few tests on him in exchange for house arrest over death. The experiments are lasting longer than he thought.)





	strong stomach

**Author's Note:**

> this is unbeta'd, written from a tumblr prompt (horror ask prompt 13. being experimented on), and i can't really put it with the shippy fics? so i'll drop it on it's own. i really hope you enjoy even tho its short. thanks!

He puts on music and tells you about his first case. Nimble fingers, their cool delicate flicker like a spider on your forearm, roll up the sleeve of a shirt that isn’t yours. You haven’t had your own shirts for a week; your father is supposed to send them soon. This shirt is Quillsh’s, whose name is knowledge you can sink your teeth into and never, ever taste the meat of. Useless without your notebook. Useless without your power.

In Russia, he tells you, there are few good people but many people in good costumes. He pauses, his dry lips the only color on his face that isn’t plunked through with ink, and taps your bare arm. Another tap, and you wonder what he’s looking for. Probably a good vein. To be honest, it don’t matter if he finds a good one or a poor one. The first vein always rolls on your right arm and he’ll have to try your left. _Light has such reluctant veins,_ he says to you each week. _Do they have something to hide too?_

 _I want to go home,_ you tell him.

 _Another week,_ L talks down toward your forearm with its dishonest veins. _Surely, you owe me another week._

When he was six, Quillsh took him off the streets of Leningrad and into the loving arms of capitalism, invention, and international criminal justice. _Sorry,_ he rubs the skin inside your elbow, although he’s not apologizing for his pinching grip. _I mean to say Saint Petersburg, but you know how it is to forget._ Then he smiles; ha, ha. The great L makes a little joke. Your chest is a sinkhole, bigger and sucking, when he presses the needle to the vein. Cool steel—oh like those fingers, they circled your wrist when that thirteen days was up, when you were still alive—splits the flesh, cuts inside. A first time for everything—the vein doesn’t roll. L focuses his dark eyes on you and the sinkhole widens.

 _What do you care about names of places?_ You look anywhere but your arm—his pointed chin, the white chintzy ceiling tiles, the door with its little glass window—and land on a lamp where a fly is dying. Death buzzes are so loud and maybe, just maybe, if that fucking Shinigami hadn’t backtracked, you’d have heard L in his death flailing as an insect might.

 _Names are important,_ he says. _You know that. Now, be still and listen to the story. This injection will sting._

He’s lying—it’s fire in your blood and only the leather restraints keep you from writhing in pain. Instead, you let out a strangle wail that he talks over. Story, story. Listen to the story.

His first case was also in Russia, which is funny because he told Quillsh he never wanted to go back. Snow and shit is what he remembers about his “home” but now he remembers it as where he saw his first dead body. Someone in the old regime killed their wife—a beautiful woman, L admits, although the people he interviewed said she was stupid as a stump—but not a single enforcer could prove it. Quillsh brought him in, held his small hand as they walked through an opulent hotel with gold framed paintings and mirrors on every wall, and delivered L right into the room where the wife’s corpse laid.

 _I vomited,_ L tells you as torture infects your body. _You see, I can’t respect your distance from your victims. If you ever saw death, your stomach would be stronger. But you have a weak belly, Light, and a brilliant mind never outweighs weak bellies._

The needle slips out of you and so does a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Tears stick on your cheeks and a sob leaks out along with blood from the puncture wound. L presses a cotton ball to the bleeding, wraps gauze around it and secures it with a butterfly clip. His movements are tender. You are special to him, he’s told you before. He wants you in good condition because the experiments depend on your health not being a variant. There’s always good food delivered to your room—a prison, even in how comfortable the bed is, how beautiful the crown molding, how elegant a desk L got for you—and he handles your body without cruelty.

The wife was shot in the head, but L found hand marks on her neck. Strangled, killed accidentally perhaps? His expression flickers with amusement when you ask this and admits it was his first conclusion too. Music swells as he takes out his memo pad and scribbles a note or two. His eyes on your pained twitches and crumpled moans are two microscopes zoomed into the details of your reaction. She was strangled for fatal purposes, then shot to give the loyal militsiya an excuse to not know the killer. But the wife had been having an affair with a man close to Quillsh, who brought his little genius in to catch the bad man who did it.

 _But when we brought the evidence to them,_ he talks to his own hands, empty now that he’s set the memo aside, _the law enforcement told myself and Quillsh there could be no trial, as this wasn’t a crime._

 _He killed her,_ you hiss between clenched teeth (justice? Where’s the justice? You saved them, you saved the world from criminals and he locks you in here and he experiments on you and he—)

 _She had an affair,_ L says. _That was enough justification for them. Good riddance they said when we showed them the strangulation marks. I was very upset and didn’t speak to Quillsh for weeks. It was a strained time._

Pain dies down and now there’s only ache in your bones. Your eyes are heavy; your mouth is both too wet and too dry. L folds his hand in yours and you squeeze it. The combination of the twin grips is a promise—not a handshake, but a sealing of flesh together.

 _Humans can justify anything to themselves,_ he tells you, same as he told you the day you agreed to let him test on your body in exchange for a lifelong house arrest sentence. He told you he wanted to know how Kira worked, what your limits were. _Anything so we can say we’re good people. A conscience can be endlessly placated but justice cannot. We live in an unbalanced world, a world with a weak stomach that won’t look at the body in the room even though it won’t go away. Do you understand?_

You don’t understand, you never do, so you don’t says yes. He pats your hand, stands up, turns off the music and lets you know Quillsh will take you back to your room.

 _I’ll make your stomach strong,_ he whispers to you. _I’ll show you the bodies._

**Author's Note:**

> hey! hope you liked the fic, maybe enjoyed the creepiness (if it was creepy??). I left it sort of vague at the end, but what do YOU think L wants from the experiments? what do you want it to be? let me know in a comment as well as maybe what you liked! thank you!


End file.
